The Songs
by Shielded by a Fake Smile
Summary: It's her musical taste that catches his attention; her personality is what holds it. He finds himself falling into her life as he lets her fall into his, and once they've fallen in, neither can leave, not that they seem to want to. ItaSaku
1. The Kill

"The Kill" 30 Seconds to Mars

It was a warm day in May, one of those days where the earthy, water-enriched scent of fresh rain on soil filled the air. A black hair-tie held in place a low ponytail of familiar pink hair atop the head of one Haruno Sakura as she sat quietly in the back of her Civics class, taking meticulous notes on World War II and the American occupation in Japan. She was taking the notes more to pass the time than for any other reason, as she already knew all of the basic facts that her teacher was idly repeating. With only two minutes left in the class and her teacher off on a tangent about the current gasoline prices, Sakura began to write down the lyrics of the song that was currently stuck on "repeat" in her head. _What if I wanted to break…? Laugh it all off in your face…? What would you do? What if I fell to the floor, couldn't take all this anymore? What would you do, do, do?_

Just as her pencil finished the down stroke of the top half of her last question mark, the bell rang to signal that fourth period was over. Sakura was about to put away her notes when a boy with long, dark hair walked up to her and asked her if he could borrow her notes, as he had fallen asleep during class and thus didn't take any notes of his own. Sakura's initial thought was that she shouldn't let the boy borrow her notes; after all, if the boy had been careless enough to fall asleep during class, he probably wouldn't give the notes a second glance. But something about the dark circles set beneath the boy's eyes and the limp way his hair hung in his face, as if he didn't have the energy to sweep it back from in front of his left eye, convinced her that the boy's reasons for wanting her notes were sincere. It might have helped that, despite the lack of sleep evident on his face, the boy was insufferably attractive, or that his hand lingered slightly when it brushed hers as she handed him her notes. It also might have helped that she recognized the expression on the boy's face to be that of an Uchiha. And Sakura happened to have a certain soft spot for Uchihas.

--------

The boy walked silently through the halls to get to his next class, his feet accustomed to keeping his presence a secret. His eyes briefly scanned the neatly written dates and descriptions that lined two pages of notes, and he committed each fact to memory, not having cared enough to bother retaining information about World War II before. As he slid into his seat in the third row of a Chemistry class, he ran through the information he had just scanned and checked his memory against the small print that weaved across Sakura's pages of notes. His teacher walked into the room and began a lesson on nuclear fission and nuclear fusion before the boy could finish going over his notes, but the boy already knew all about fusion and fission, so he continued to review information in his head. Suddenly, he realized that he was repeating song lyrics to himself and no longer referring to General MacArthur, and he glanced confusedly down at the second page of notes. Sure enough, there were a few lines at the end of Sakura's notes dedicated to a song he actually happened to like. He was surprised that he shared any kind of musical interest with the seemingly naïve pink-haired girl, surprised enough to see if they shared any other musical interests in common. The boy took out a clean sheet of lined paper and quickly scribed a few lines of a song by one of his favorite artists.

When Chemistry ended, the boy quickly located Sakura and handed her the three sheets of paper, thanking her for the use of her notes. If she noticed that there was an extra piece of paper, she didn't mention it, the two just parted ways to get to their next class.

But after their next class, the boy saw Sakura in the hall again, slipped a note into his hand and said "You have good taste in music, Uchiha Itachi."

**Author's Note: I really appreciate reviews; they motivate me and help me understand what I need to work on with regards to my writing style, so please leave one. Thank you for your time regardless. :) **


	2. Addiction and Her Name

"Addiction and Her Name" ~There For Tomorrow

Itachi didn't read the note Sakura had given him until his last class of the day, as his other classes had been full of tests. When he opened it, he noticed that, like his note, it had lyrics written across the top of the page. However, some words also followed the lyrics. The note read:

"'_And it's not that it's too hard to try to turn your eyes and drive the pain away, It's how much easier it is to let it stay.'_

Now if you've heard **this** song, I'll be surprised. I'm pretty impressed with your music taste so far, maybe we could go to a café sometime and talk, I'm sure we'd get along well."

He couldn't help but smirk at the last part. If she thought that she could get a date with him that easily, then she was as naïve as he'd thought before. Besides, Itachi had a girlfriend right now. He didn't particularly care for his girlfriend, but she would help him have some fun toying with Sakura.

Itachi wrote a note to give Sakura, and the bell rang to signal the end of school as he finished. That was when Itachi realized that he had been so caught up in his new correspondence with Sakura that he forgot to eat. _Oh well,_ he thought. _It's not like I ever eat much of this disgusting cafeteria food anyway._

Itachi walked in the direction that he knew Sakura's locker would be in, since all of the sophomores with a surname beginning with A to G had a locker in the second hallway of the school. Looking down the entire hallway and not seeing Sakura, Itachi felt a little disappointed, and then berated himself for letting such an insignificant thing bother him. Even while he was scolding himself, he realized that it wasn't so much that he was disappointed, but more as if he felt something was wrong. It was beyond Itachi as to why he felt something was wrong, or why even cared, and if you asked him about it later he'd claim that he simply needed some fresh air, but Itachi found himself running out the school doors into the courtyard just in time to see Sakura fall to the ground with a fresh cut on the side of her face.

Standing over Sakura was a tall boy with lavender eyes and waist-length hair the color of a Mocha Dream smoothie. The tall boy's face was contorted into a sadistic smirk as he brought his leg behind him with the intention of kicking Sakura in the ribs. As the tall boy's foot was about to make contact, it was suddenly stopped by a force that sent the tall boy backwards, his arms waving wildly with the hope to catch his balance. Itachi now sat in front of Sakura and addressed the tall boy.

"Leave. Now. Before I change my mind about not tearing you to shreds for daring to hit a girl," Itachi commanded in a cool voice that just barely hid a growl rising in his throat.

If it had been anyone but Itachi giving that command, the tall boy would have protested. But the tall boy knew who Itachi was, and he wasn't dumb enough to cross someone with such a reputation. When Itachi was in grade school, another boy punched him in the face. No one ever saw the other boy again. And that was the least of the rumors about Itachi. So the tall boy walked away as fast as he could while not looking like he had just admitted defeat.

Itachi refrained from asking Sakura any questions about the incident; he just quietly took into account a large scrape on Sakura's forearm and a new bruise on her knee. He pulled her to her feet, handed her the note that he had come to give her, and then dragged her behind him all the way out into the parking lot. She didn't say anything until she found herself looking at the passenger's side of a black Cadillac with flecks of red paint along it.

"Why," she began, her throat catching for a moment, "why did you take me to your car?"

"Your arm needs medical attention. I have some gauze in my car," he answered matter-of-fact-ly, getting the afore-mentioned gauze out from his car.

Sakura didn't protest as Itachi swiftly and expertly wrapped the gauze around her arm and tied off the end.

"I don't have any bandages for the cut on your cheek, so you'll have to fix that when you get home," Itachi said.

A couple of colorful words flew out of Sakura's mouth, and at Itachi's confused glance, she explained that she'd missed her bus.

"That's no problem; I can give you a ride home. I need to ask you something anyway," Itachi added.

"I don't know," Sakura replied. "I don't want to make you go out of your way to take me home…"

"It was my fault that you were detained before reaching your bus. If I hadn't made you walk over here to dress your wound, then you would still have made your bus."

"I suppose," Sakura replied, and climbed into the car. When her back hit the leather seat, she wondered if she could "accidentally" miss her bus tomorrow too, for certainly that leather was superior to hard vinyl bus seats any day. The leather even smelled better than the bus; although that wasn't saying much, most school buses smell of some sort of bodily fluid. But the seats in Itachi's car smelled of cinnamon and earth, a surprisingly wonderful combination.

Seatbelts intact, Itachi started the car and pulled out of the school parking lot as Sakura described the roads to take to get to her house. Her house was on the way to his, so it worked out well. Since Itachi knew the roads along the way better than he knew his alphabet, he decided it was time to ask Sakura the question that had been playing in his mind.

"Sakura-san, if I may ask, who was the boy that hurt you? And why didn't you fight back? You're a strong girl, yet there isn't a single defensive wound on your body. It's as if you were allowing him to hurt you."

Sakura's eyes slid closed. She had feared that he was going to ask that. And she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell him the truth.

**Author's Note: Again, I really appreciate reviews, I like to know how I'm doing so far, what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see in the future. Please drop a review if you can, thank you for your time. :)**


	3. Seventeen Ain't So Sweet

"Seventeen Ain't So Sweet" ~The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

"Itachi-san, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't know you well enough to explain all of it to you. Just know that I allowed him to injure me so that he can let out his pain and his anger at me. I deserve it," Sakura attempted to explain.

Itachi's eyes flashed dangerously and the Cadillac swerved towards the middle of the four lane road, narrowly avoiding a passing Altima.

"No one," he said, spitting the words like he couldn't stand the feel of them in his mouth, "_no one_ deserves to get hurt no matter what the reason is. Don't let me ever find you sitting there and letting someone take out their anger on you, I don't care who it is or how they're taking it out on you."

Sakura was rather shocked by Itachi's reaction; she hadn't expected him to care so much. But she realized that it probably wasn't her that he was thinking about while making that comment. She hadn't know him more than a day, and a day was nowhere near a long enough time to cause such a frightening flash of anger.

There was silence in the car for the five more minutes it took for Itachi to arrive at Sakura's home. Itachi took the time to park and help Sakura open her door, since she couldn't figure out how to work the handle.

"Thank you for the ride, it was very generous of you," Sakura said, unsure if she'd remembered to thank him earlier. "And don't worry; I won't let Neji do that again."

_Neji…_

Itachi found himself committing that name to memory. It was the only word that ran through his head as he said "You're welcome" and quickly drove away. In the seven minutes between Sakura's house and his own house, his mind wandered to different style of torture that would provide the most pain while leaving the least evidence. But then a few intense bars of guitar resonated through Itachi's car and he picked up his cell phone, remembering that he had a girlfriend and that he needed to stop worrying about the young Haruno girl. His brother would take care of the Haruno girl anyway.

Bringing the phone to his ear, Itachi said, "Hello Konan."

"Hello butterfly, how are you?"

"I'm fine."

"…You're not going to ask how _I_ am? Fine then. I guess you really were making out with some slut in your car."

"What?"

"You heard me. I had a friend call me saying that she saw you sucking face with some red-head. She said you were so into it that you were swerving into the road."

"That's not true. I have no reason to be disloyal to you."

"Whatever. I let it go the last couple times I heard something like this, but I'm not letting it go this time, it's over."

Silence filled the other line of the phone, so Itachi hung up.

Predictably, Konan called back, screeching something about Itachi not ever appreciating her and never taking her on any dates. By this time, Itachi was sitting in his driveway, so he put his phone on the dashboard, exited his car and walked into the house, his cell phone still in the car. Hopefully no one important called him while his phone was in there, but then, no one other than Konan ever did call him. They knew better than to bother Itachi when he was possibly doing something very important.

Itachi fished around in his pocket for his house key, pulled it out, and opened the front door to his abnormally large home. He walked inside, pleased to find that the television was off, which meant that his father wasn't home. Maybe his father left on a business trip so that Itachi could actually sleep tonight.

The dark circles under Itachi's eyes weren't there because he stayed up late doing schoolwork, like everyone always thought was the case. Those circles came from staying up all night at least four nights each week, guarding the door to his father's room so that his father can't get out. When Itachi's father is drunk, which he often is, he always tries to enter Itachi's brother's room to take out his drunken anger on his son.

Itachi's brother resented Itachi with a passion, so he couldn't find out about how Itachi stayed up to protect him so often. He couldn't find out that, even though Itachi was hated by his little brother, he still wanted to protect him from the horrors of what his father could do when drunk. Itachi still had scars from the nights when his mother was away on business, back when Itachi was an only child. Itachi had to make sure that his brother never gained such scars. If Itachi's brother knew that he was being protected, he would hate Itachi even more and try to solve the problem of his drunken father by himself. So Itachi told everyone at school that his lack of sleep was from studying, and with Itachi's amazing grades, everyone believed him.

Itachi sighed and walked into the kitchen to get something to eat. He only wished that his mother were still alive, being around his mother always kept his father away from alcohol.

Soon, Itachi found himself lying on his bed, flipping through channels on his television, and the next thing he knew was his alarm clock blaring in his ear, signaling a new school day.

--------

When Itachi arrived at school, much more refreshed than usual after his full twelve hours of sleep, he found two notes slipped into his locker, one with the obvious handwriting of Sakura, and the other with Konan's maniac scrawl.

Konan's note found its way into a nearby trash can, and Sakura's note was opened immediately.

"'_Seventeen is just a test, yeah, And I would recommend, That you live with no regret'_

You know, the excuse you put in yesterday's note about having a girlfriend no longer applies, and boy do you get around fast. I heard that you were animatedly kissing a red-head only a few minutes after I left your car.

Anyway, I'm going to meet you at your car after school, and we'll go for a little ride— I drive this time, your driving is a bit scary."

A huge smirk covered Itachi's face and he began to count down the minutes until the end of the day. He'd heard that Sakura always drove when she was taking a male on a "test drive" during which she tested out their personality and got to know them better. There was no doubt that this would be interesting.

**Author's Note: Wow, three updates in one day, I doubt I'll ever update this frequently again. All reviews are appreciated greatly, as always, and thank you for taking the time to read this Author's Note, I know that most people don't bother. **

**Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, the titles are the name of the song that gets quoted in their notes to each other. Check out the songs if you want, they're all pretty good.**


End file.
